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Smells of Vienna - horses and dogs, then inside the sewers

Vienna, Austria


I lived in Vienna while teaching at the International University there, and seemed to get into a bit of trouble at times while traveling. I think it was the frequency of my running around that got me. Anyway, I wrote about some of my experiences at www.talestogo.com, and you should take a look for sure. To really appreciate Vienna, one needs to pay special attention to the smells of the city, which can be pretty intense.
First off, the city is filled with horses, very well dressed horses. Some have diapers, but others just do it on the pavement. And the dogs. Every Viennese walks a dog with pooping regularity. It is wonderful. I was on high alert at all times lest I slip on a surprise. As if that weren't enough, at the end of one of my trips, I just had to go underground and visit the Viennese sewers. It seemed like the thing to do. My best description of the nasty smells is in my book "Paris Picture". Gotta love Vienna!


permalink written by  Heather Bryce on October 25, 2007 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Vienna Life
tagged Vienna, Smells and Sewers

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Dia 2:Viena

Vienna, Austria


Viena resultó ser encantadora, edificios impactantes y encima un dia genial!!
La disfrutamos paseando, porque todo se encuentra muy céntrico. Tras pasear a lo Largo de Kartnerstrasse (la triana de viena), llegamos a Stephanplatz donde se impone la catedral gótica, era una plaza muy viva. Los edificios que se situaban allí fueron del agrado de los "arquitectiles" que formaban el quinteto, aunque a lo Largo del viaje algún "ingenieril" tambien se les sumó...

Continuamos nuestro andar hasta la zona del Hofburg donde museos y palacios abundaban por doquier, por el camino las tiendas chocolateras nos hacían salivar enormemente.

Ya por la tarde, despues de recargar fuerzas en el McDonald´s continuamos atraves de calles y parques empapandonos de la belleza vienesa.
A la caida de la noche, nos sorprendió encontrarnos con el Rauthaus, que estaba iluminado y tenia en su plaza una gran pista de hielo, terminando el día con un gran sabor de boca.




permalink written by  dasape86 on February 23, 2008 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Austria
tagged Vienna, Austria and Viena

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Vienna - a heaven for opera fans

Vienna, Austria


Vienna feels like Berlin, very big with lotsa sights but more leaning towards classical music n opera than history like Berlin. u really feel it in d air! it's like so many people walking d streets holding some kind of string instruments: violin, viola, cello, etc. u cant not feel d culture here. here's pictures:

we wanted to see d Vienna choir boys. we were told that they will sing durin d sunday church service, so we went but we see no choir boys. it was some middle-aged guys, who were probably former members of d choir. it was a bit of a bummer but o well....

there's some realy nice food here as well! they have dumplings with fillings. kinda like our chinese dumplings but made with flour n not rice. n d my host Daniel brought us to this restaurant that serves a huge portion of Wiener Schnitzel. it was such a huge serving, i ate only half of it n brought d other half home for lunch d next day!

i'll juz let d pictures talk as usual for d rest of d trip in Vienna.










permalink written by  wangyng on May 12, 2008 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Hello Europe!!
tagged Vienna and Austria

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Vienna

Vienna, Austria


So instead of Prague we ended up in Vienna! When we inquired about trains, the train went through Vienna, so we figured we would stop there for a night. We had a six seat cabin all to ourselves which was excellent because we could move the seats to make a bed each. I slept really well and woke up looking at the snowy peaks of Austria! Vienna is very nice. I'm not sure how to describe it. It has less antiquities than Rome, but there is kind of a Medieval feel to the place. I am still surprised by the graffiti present in Europe. I know Australia has it's fair share of Graffiti, but we don't have buildings with hundreds of years of history!

The difference from Vienna to Rome was apparent immediately. For a start, in Rome, you RUN across the road before you get taken out. Vienna is very Germanic and organised. Only tourists (especially Italian ones) cross before the little green man (and little green person on a bike!) appears. The street manners remind me a lot of Newcastle in the UK. People pick a line to walk and you daren't step in their way. I got the dirtiest look from a lady today for happening to walk a little too slowly in front of her and her pram. This was after we saw a guy run his shoulder into a young lady. Crazy stuff.

Vienna has the same beggars that Italy had, if a little less dramatic. The beggars here will sit in little alcoves with a cup for money, whereas the Roman beggars will directly confront you for money. I had a guy approach me outside the Vatican saying he was a refugee fro Macedonia and his family needed just 1 Euro cent from me to survive. You can't buy a brass razzoo or a plastic one for one Euro cent. Unbelievable. I'm always a sucker for a battler, but I managed to resist the calling of people apparently down on their luck. We saw a lady and two children (her grand-children I would say) begging on the train. No-one gave them anything. They stopped their crying and wailing and patiently waited for the train to stop at the next station so they could board the next carriage. That kind of put me on the back foot as to their situation. It just seems like a business to most of these people. I'd like to know what the situation with welfare is in these countries, as well as government housing, that sort of thing. Every time we went to an amazing piece of Roman architecture we would prepare ourselves for the assault of people offering us half-price umbrellas or special deals on tours.

I know I sound a little jaded, but I was struck by the immense size and scale of the Vatican, and being a religious place I thought it was horrendous that people would hawk their wares outside. Mind you, every step we took on the way to the Sistene Chapel wasn't too far from a Vatican endorsed gift shop. You can't look at the treasures in the Vatican and listen to a priest talk about empty bellies with a straight face. Unless you've seen the mass of gold, jewels and paintings of inestimable worth in the Vatican you probably wouldn't understand.

All I wanted to see in the Vatican was the Sistene chapel. We went into Saint Peter's basilica first and I was blown away. I wasn't too happy at the amount of people taking pictures though. It was the same as the Pantheon for me. I think grandiose religious places, whether Christian, Jew or Muslim, should be seen as a place of worship not a place for people to gawk at the architectural wonderment and take pictures of the pretty statues. Places of worship are built for the glory of god after all.

Okay, that was probably enough about religion, just had to get that off my chest. We are planning to go to Prague tomorrow, so it's definitely maybe going to happen. We walked all afternoon around Vienna today but I know it wasn't really a good look at what makes Vienna tick. Unfortunately we've only got about a week more to tour around until we go somewhere special for Christmas and then back to the UK for new years.

permalink written by  10bastards on December 17, 2008 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Eurotrip
tagged Vienna

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Don't do your washing in Prague!

Prague, Czech Republic


So it's been almost two weeks since my last pithy comment, again delayed due to lack of internet and time. We made it to Prague via the train. It was a well decked out train, with power-points, so I was able to play Tetris all the way there! Woo hoo.

Prague was not really like I expected it to be. I was thinking of Blade, all dark and gothic. Wasn't quite like that. The beer and food was good quality and cheap which made us both very happy. Our second night there we ventured into the city to try and find some night-life. All we found was drinks three times as expensive as three train stops away. Perhaps the number of stops from the city is indicative of the price of beer! I was reminded of Kabukicho in Japan walking around Prague central. This was because of the large amount of black guys either offering REALLY dodgy money-changing services or a "good" deal on a show. I couldn't wait to get out of there!

We got our hostel to to a load of washing for us the next day while we went to our favourite restaurant around the corner. They treated us like family, it was great! We were about to leave, but the owner gave me a free glass of port. It was so good we bought two each. Then they brought out some snacks for us, and I had my way with their ipod. It was a great afternoon, until we returned to get our washing and found our hostel charged us about twenty times what it would have cost to do. That put me in a great mood for our overnight train to Krakow, that's for sure!

permalink written by  10bastards on December 27, 2008 from Prague, Czech Republic
from the travel blog: Eurotrip
tagged Vienna

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To Vienna - Wir gehen zu Osterreich!

Vienna, Austria


This morning, we got off to a little of a slow start. We ate breakfast at Grand Cafe Orient, which is at the top of the Czech Cubism Museum building (we should have gone to the Museum too). There was a band marching on the street below, and enough bees again surrounding our food outside to kill an elephant, so we stepped back inside after a bit.

We packed up and headed to Vienna via Brno. Either by mistake or on purpose, (Tom Tom's maps had not been updated in 3 years) we ended up on about 60 Miles of backroads outside of Vienna which took us through a few small towns with some very beautiful views (way to go Tom Tom).

We checked in to our hotel, Viennart Hotel, right across the street from the Museums Quartier. We are right on the outskirts of the city center which is nice, but the tram runs right past our window, the room is not really very nice and there is no A/C - thank goodness it's cold outside. Somehow this place got a 4 star rating, which boggles my mind because it's worthy of no more than 2 stars - well except for the bathroom, which is somehow pretty nice. I guess for the price it's all ok. We found free parking for the night on the street outside, but the spot was ubertight. I MAYBE gave the van in front of us a little bumper love, but both cars looked good as new after the job was done and about 10 inches to spare on either end. Thanks dad for teaching me to park a stick on a hill :)

We grabbed something something to eat and then headed to the Museums Quartier, which was a supercool layout of art buildings and major hangout. We passed through the Hofburg, Leopold's Museum and Kunsthistorisches Museum and into the city center to see Stephensdom and a lot of other gorgeous sights. There was no shortage of street entertainment, but all of the shops and buildings were closed since it was Sunday evening. But none of that detracted from the breathtaking architecture. Seems like we had a whirlwind day, so we stopped at a cafe for tea for me and dinner for Kris, then got some ice cream and went back to the hotel to chill out a little. We almost went to the bar, but decided to save our Euros for tomorrow. I also took the opportunity to move the car a few feet back since the car behind us had left:)

PS - Frau Schuller, eat your heart out, because I still know my German!

permalink written by  blondie on August 29, 2010 from Vienna, Austria
from the travel blog: Central Europe
tagged Vienna and CentralEurope

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Christmas Market Tours 2013 across Austria, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia

Helen, United States


I am taking Americans and Aussies on an adventure throughout Europe to visit some beloved Christmas Markets. For 17 years I have visited thousands of villages, towns and cities across Europe drinking lots of Glühwein and being spellbound by the Christmas Markets. Looking forward to this year!

permalink written by  vipalpinetours on November 5, 2013 from Helen, United States
from the travel blog: vipalpinetours's Travel Blog
tagged Christmas, Alps, Germany, Snow, Tours, Vienna, Hamburg, Austria, Berlin, Innsbruck, Holidays, Slovenia, Hungary, Tirol, ChristmasMarket, Weihnachtsmarkt, Christkindlmarkt, Wien, Graz, Tourismus and Christmastime

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